But that had been before the interminable waste of the Grass War and the long train of young women and men in front of my desk with the trinkets they thought would give them a chance of not becoming food for crows in a field somewhere.

When she plays, it’s the old songs—not her heavy concertos but brisk two-fingered melodies, folk tunes and old hymns, the first songs her youngest students would master. Every month when the soldiers bring her supply of flour and milk, they also bring waterproofed parcels of manuscript paper and cool bricks of ink. She always refuses them.

Megan Arkenberg's work has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov's, Shimmer, multiple times previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year. She has edited the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance since 2008. She currently lives in Northern California, where she's pursuing a Ph.D. in English literature. Visit her online at www.meganarkenberg.com.